Category Archives: Made for TV Movie

Tales from the Crypt S4 E7: The New Arrival (1992)

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The cast in this one!

Dr. Alan Goetz (David Warner) hosts Good Psychology, a show where he discusses the issues of parents with their children. Often, he tells them that they should ignore their children when he isn’t screaming at them,. That said, he never really gives much good advice, which is why the station’s owner Rona (Joan Severance) is planning on replacing him with a shock jock named Lothar (Robert Patrick). Dr. Alan, however, has a plan to get ratings. A call from a regular named Nora (Zelda Rubinstein) leads to him offering to broadcast live from her home, bring along Rona and his producer Bonnie (Twiggy).

Nora’s daughter Felicity (played by Laura Dash and Aytl Jensen) wears a white porcelain mask, screams like an animal and has booby trapped the entire place. Dr. Alan thinks that she’s another personality of Nora. It remains to be seen if he’s correct.

“It’s- it’s just like that nightmare I told you about! The one I keep having when I’m petting Bambi! You’ve got to help me, doc! I’m losing my mind! I can’t seem to take a joke anymore! I mean, a choke! I mean… It’s like the man in tonight’s tale. He’s a head shrinker who’s about to undergo a little final analysis of his own, in a paranoid parable I call: “The New Arrival.””

Nora has a library with books by every child psychologist who ever lived, including a few who have mysteriously died. That’s because she’s brought so many of them here to try and reach her daughter — who died forty years ago and remains a zombie — and they starve to death while she plays with them. Their books remain.

Man, what a wild story. This was directed by Peter Medak, who also made The Changeling. It was written by Ron Finley, who scripted five episodes of Tales from the Crypt.

This was based on “The New Arrival” from Haunt of Fear #25. It was written by Otto Binder and drawn by Graham Ingels. It’s very different from this episode, as it’s about a woman who keeps kidnapping people to become her new baby.

Tales from the Crypt S4 E6: What’s Cookin’ (1992)

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Fred (Christopher Reeve) and Erma (Bess Armstrong) own Fred and Erma’s Calamari Cafe but seemingly not for long. Fred dreams of being the Baskin Robbins of squid but he’s three months ahead on rent to Mr. Chumley (Meat Loaf). Despite the idea of janitor Mae Gaston (Judd Nelson) to use his family’s barbecue recipe, Fred starts to lose his mind and even tries to stab Mr. Chumley.

“Next time I book a table for 8 o’clock, Wolfgang, I expect to be seated at 8 o’clock! Yes, a good whine. Not a great whine, but locally groan, that’s for sure. A pleasant enough boo-que. Almost reminds me of a good scream sherry! I hope you brought your appetites, kiddies, because tonight’s tasteless tidbit is something I’m sure you’ll savor. It’s a real epi-gorian delight about a nice young couple who find the restaurant business a little hard to swallow. I call this adventure in fine dying “What’s Cookin.””

When Officer Phil Farley (Art LaFleur) arrives the next day to arrest him, he’s diverted by a dish of steak and eggs. It smells so good that more people show up and it turns out that they’re eating Mr. Chumley, served up by Gaston, who soon blackmails Fred into half the profits. Now Gaston Fred and Erma’s Steakhouse is a big deal, but Gaston worries that Fred can’t handle it. This gives him an idea — kill Fred and Erma. He just misjudges just how much they want this place to turn a profit and how much Farley loves the meat.

Directed and written by Gilbert Adler, this is one of the better episodes of the show. Do you think Meat Loaf ever got tired of being typecast as characters who are eaten or turned into soap?

It’s based on “What’s Cookin’?” from The Haunt of Fear #15. It was written by William Gaines and Al Feldstein and drawn by Jack Davis.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Legs (1983)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Legs was on the CBS Late Movie on March 10 and October 6, 1986 and August 8, 1988.

Known as Rockettes in the UK, this was filmed at Radio City Music Hall with the 1982 Rockettes. It played there as a movie before it aired on TV.

Lisa Norwood (Shanna Reed), Terry Riga (Deborah Geffner) and Melissa Rizzo (Maureen Teefy) are three dancers trying to get the one chorus line position open under choreographer Maureen Comly (Gwen Verdon). Sheree North also shows up as a former dancer and John Heard as a love interest.

If you watch TV movies, you recognize director Jerrold Freedman’s (Kansas City Bomber, A Cold Night’s Death) name. He co-wrote the story with Brian Garfield, who wrote the novel that Death Wish is based on, as well as The Stepfather.

Really, the reason to watch are all the dance scenes, some of which seem like space disco numbers. The rest is soap opera, but it’s fine. It’s no All That Jazz, which Deborah Geffner was also in.

I was a pro wrestler for years and people always said, “This isn’t ballet.” Dude. Ballet is way rougher.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Packin’ It In (1983)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Packin’ It In was on the CBS Late Movie on April 30 and December 3, 1986.

The Webbers — Gary (Richard Benjamin), Dianne (Paula Prentiss), Melissa (Molly Ringwald) and Jay (David Hollander) — leave Los Angeles behind for Oregon after Gary loses his job. I mean, what are they leaving behind? Smog? Little Jay being addicted to Cinemax After Dark? Melissa’s punk rock boyfriend Johnny Crud (Clinton Dean)?

Oregon is just like the MAGA world of today, filled with doomsday preppers, gun lovers and book burners. But strangely, the kids start to like it and Benjamin goes kind of crazy like he always does and a big storm ends up bringing the whole town together.

The family had friends who did the same thing, the Baumgartens — Charlie (Tony Roberts), Rita (Andrea Marcovicci) and Claire (Laura Bruneau) — but the country has changed them. Even when Dianne tries to teach the local children who can’t read, she’s treated like a criminal.

Directed by Jud Taylor (The Disappearance of Flight 412) and written by Patricia Jones and Donald Reiker (who scripted The Jesse Ventura Story together), this is a fine TV movie that used Ringwald’s fame once it was released on VHS.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Murder at the World Series (1977)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Murder at the World Series was on the CBS Late Movie on November 25, 1982 and April 5, 1985.

Cisco (Bruce Boxleitner) once tried out for the Houston Astros and didn’t make the team. But now that they’re in the World Series — this wouldn’t really happen until 2005 and they wouldn’t win until 2017 — he’s decided to make things murderous.

Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen (who not only directed Sahara for Cannon, he also made The Wild Geese) and written by Cy Chermak (the writer of 4D Man and producer for Kolchak: The Night Stalker), this is filled with big stars — well, for me — all being pulled into this disaster.

This movie really has enough plot for an entire series, much less a TV movie. Lynda Day George is troubled actress Margot Mannering! Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra Jones) is her friend Lisa! Karen Valentine is news reporter Lois Marshall! Maggie Wellman is Kathy, a groupie who Cisco thinks is an Astro wife and he abducts, only to strap a bomb to her! It’s also the last movie of Nancy Kelly, the mother of The Bad Seed! Even better, you get Murray Hamilton, Michael Parks, Hugh O’Brian, Dr. No Joseph Wiseman, rodeo cowboy Larry Mahan, Dick Enberg as a radio announcer and Lisa Hartman as a stewardess! And how could I forget! Monica Gayle, my beloved Patch from Switchblade Sisters, is in this!

“The motion picture you are about to see is a work of fiction. It does not reflect the opinions, attitudes or policies of the Houston Astros to whom we are deeply grateful.” I love this credit. I loved this movie, as well. It’s just so silly, but I’m so into both TV movies and disaster spectacles.

This is not the Roy Scheider-starring Night Game, which also has the Astros involved in a murder plot, not is it New York Met pitcher Tom Seaver’s book, Beanball: Murder at the World Series.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: The Hustler of Muscle Beach (1980)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Hustler of Muscle Beach was on the CBS Late Movie on September 19 and October 10, 1986.

Jonathan Kaplan started with movies like Night Call Nurses and The Student Teachers before eventually making The Accused. Along the way, he made a few TV movies like this one, written by Tim Maschler and David Smilow.

Nick Demec (Richard Hatch) is a con artist who decides to get in on the bodybuilding scene on Muscle Beach, taking the mentally challenged bodybuilder Todd Nash (Tim Kimber, who now co-owns Gold’s Gym) as his client. Call girl Jenny O’Rourke (Kay Lenz) sees right through him, but somehow he decides to become a way better person than he was when this movie started.

Bobby Van from Make Me Laugh is the MC, Franco Columbo and Frank Zane play themselves, Paul Bartel and James Hong appear and an alternate title — Shaping Up — which is better than the one they went with. Ah, the magical days of 1980 when Pumping Iron inspired so many TV movies!

You can watch this — with original commericals — on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Dracula (1973)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Dracula was on the CBS Late Movie on July 21, 1976.

Written by Richard Matheson and directed by Dan Curtis, this would be the second collaboration between Curtis and Jack Palance after 1968’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

This movie has a big impact on Dracula lore: Francis Ford Coppola’s version seems to take two cues from this film, which had never appeared in any other version of Stoker’s story: Dracula is Vlad the Impaler and that he is convinced that Mina is the reincarnation of his dead wife.

Also — Gene Colan based his Dracula in the comic book Tomb of Dracula on Palance years before this movie was made.

Palance is an incredibly convincing Dracula. He battles a Van Helsing played by Nigel Davenport, who is also in the oddball 70’s insect film Phase IV.

Playing Lucy — and Dracula’s dead wife Maria — is Fiona Lewis, whose genre credits are plentiful, from The Fearless Vampire Killers, Dr. Phibes Rises Again and Tintorera to The Fury, Strange Behavior/Dead Kids, Strange Invaders and Innerspace.

Mina is played by Penelope Horner and one of the vampire brides is played by Sarah Douglas, Ursa from the Superman movies, Queen Taramis in Conan the Destroyer, Lyranna in the second Beastmaster movie and Elsa Toulon in the third Puppet Master movie. Man — this is full of people with full-on horror pedigrees!

Don’t believe me? Dracula’s other brides are played by Hammer actress Virginia Wetherell (Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Demons of the Mind) and Barbara Lindley, who appeared in Benny Hill and Monty Python sketches.

As for inventing that Dracula looking for his reincarnated wife plot, Curtis merely laughed and said that he was stealing from himself. Indeed, Dark Shadows and its vampire folklore informs this movie quite a bit.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Death Car on the Freeway (1979)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Death Car on the Freeway was on the CBS Late Movie on February 8 and November 12, 1982; February 3, 1984 and January 11, 1985.

When it comes to the biggest TV movies of all time, you have to include Steven Spielberg’s Duel on the list. A battle between Dennis Weaver and an 18 wheeler for a taunt 74 minutes that stayed in viewer’s minds for way longer.

That leads us to this film, which originally aired on CBS on September 25, 1979.

Janette Clausen (Shelley Hack, TV’s Charlies Angels, plus Troll and The Stepfather) is a crusading reporter who has moved up from writing feature stories to being on the air herself. She sinks her teeth into a story about a van driver who she feels has been targeting and killing only female motorists, taking on not only the male establishment but even Detroit auto manufacturers and advertising itself!

If you’re a 1970’s TV star buff like myself, you’ll have a field day with this film. You’ve got Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible) as Lieutenant Haller, the main cop on the case. There’s George Hamilton as Jan’s ex-husband who keeps trying to control her. And hey look — that’s Dinah Shore as a tennis pro who may have faced off with the villain of this piece, the Freeway Fiddler, before!

As Billy Mays used to say before he died from doing too much blow, “But wait, there’s more!”

The Riddler, Frank Gorshin, is here! Is that Ozzy’s wife, Harriet Nelson? Why yes, it is! Do I spy Barbara Rush from It Came from Outer Space and Peyton Place? I do! Abe Vigoda! You’re here too! I feel like I’m on Romper Room using my Magic Mirror to see all my friends!

Tara Buckman! You got your throat slashed in Silent Night, Deadly Night and here you are in this TV movie! Even better, you drove the Lamborghini with Adrienne Barbeau in Cannonball Run and even appeared in Never Too Young to Die!

Morgan Brittany! Sure, you were in Dallas, but you also started your career in Gypsy but found the time to be in movies I care way more about, like being the Virgin Mary in Sunn Pictures’ In Search of Historic Jesus and the TV movie The Initiation of Sarah!

Nancy Stephens! We love you! She’s probably best known as Nurse Marion Chambers from the Halloween series of films. But did you know she’s married to Halloween 2 director Rick Rosenthal? Now you do!

Is that Hal Needham as the driving instructor? It is! Hal formed Stunts Unlimited, which did all the stuntwork for Burt Reynolds’ biggest films, but he also directed Megaforce! And guess what? He also directed this movie and did a ton of the stunts, too.

Death Car on the Freeway sets up a slasher who kills targeted women with his evil black van, particularly strong women who excel beyond men. And while he does it, he plays fiddle music! We never see him or learn more about him than that, but if this reminds you a bit of Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino’s part of Grindhouse, you’re not alone.

The best part — for me — was when Jan goes to meet a gang of street racers and Sid Haig shows up! I ran around the house screaming, “SID HAIG!” so many times that Becca had to tell me to settle down and covered me with a blanket until I calmed myself.

When Jan ends a report by saying, “This is Janette Claussen for KXLA from the scene of the Freeway Fiddler’s latest attack, and not at all anxious to leave the scene, horrible as it is. Because when I do, I’m going to be like thousands of other women, in a car on Los Angeles’ 491 miles of freeway… all alone.” you’ll be riveted, wondering when the killer will strike next. Seriously, maybe it’s because I’ve spent the majority of a Sunday just allowing YouTube to randomly reward me with TV movies while I rest up and enjoy some magical napping, but I love this movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: The Invisible Avenger (1958)

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Golden Oldies Week (July 27 – August 3) Something Weird Video have released such a wide range of movies over the last 30 years that trying to categorize them can be tricky. They started out as a gray market mail order distributor (aka a bootlegger) not unlike the Cape Copy Center or Sinister Cinema and eventually moved into the niche se ploit titles that would set them apart. The movies on this list are the kind of cult genre titles that were the bread and butter of many of the bootleg companies of the 90s and most were not exclusive to SWV. If you look in the catalogs or on the website these would be under categories like “Nightmare Theatre’s Late Night Chill-O-Rama Horror Show,” “Jaws of the Jungle,” “Sci-fi Late Night Creature Feature Show,” or “Spies, Thighs & Private Eyes.” Many of these are currently available as downloads from the SWV site (until the end of 2024)!

The Invisible Avenger is a compilation of two television pilot episodes of a planned Republic Pictures TV show called The Shadow. Yes, the very same hero whose radio show had just ended in 1954. The TV show didn’t get picked up and this movie was released, which. is kind of curious as none of the advertizing — or the name — lets you know this is about Lamont Cranston and his alter ego. It had new footage added and was released again as Bourbon Street Shadows, again barely letting you know that this was a movie about The Shadow.

Some of this movie was directed by cinematographer James Wong Howe, whose only other directing credit is for the Harlem Globetrotters movies Go Man Go. He had a strange life in the Hollywood system, as his marriage to Sanora Babb was not recognized by the state of California until 1948, as they banned interracial marriage (she was white). It was the first time he could admit that he was with his wife, as the morals clause prohibited him from saying he was with a white woman. They also lived in separate apartments due to his traditional Chinese views before she moved to Mexico City to protect him from the blacklist. He would go on to be one of the most recognized cinematographers of all time.

Along with Ben Parker (Teen-Age Strangler) and John Sledge, he directed the episodes that make up this TV pilot. It’s very much torn from the headlines, as Pablo Ramirez (Dan Mullins), an expatriate to New Orleans from the Caribbean nation of Santa Cruz, is planning a coup against that country’s leader, the Generalissimo. The secret police of that country are trying to kill him and trumpet player Tony Alcalde (Steve Dano) summons Lamont Cranston (Richard Derr) and his mentor Jogendra (Mark Daniels) to help. They don’t get there in time, as Tony is killed, so they decide to help Ramirez as The Shadow.

Written by George Bellak and Ruth Jeffries, this is the sixth film that features this character. Again, it’s so odd that this is a superhero movie that wants to be sold as horror or anything but The Shadow.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Cry Panic (1974)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Cry Panic was on the CBS Late Movie on January 6, 1976; April 7, 1977 and May 18, 1978.

Jack B. Sowards created perhaps one of the most interesting parts of Star Trek: the Kobayashi Maru, a no-win scenario for new Starfleet captains that was first brought up in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He also wrote this TV movie which was directed by James Gladstone, whose tie to Star Trek is directing the classic episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” He also was behind the films Rollercoaster and When Time Ran Out…

Dennis Ryder (John Forsythe, who is astounding in this movie) is driving to San Francisco for a job interview when he hits a man who no one will admit is dead. No one — the sheriff (Earl Holliman from Police Woman), Ralph Meeker from The Alpha Incident, the town doctor (Noman Alden, Kansas City Bomber) and certainly not Anne Francis.

Jason Wingreen, who is in this, was also the voice of Boba Fett.

Seriously, this entire town is against Ryder. It’s a taunt 74 minutes and gets more out of that time than three movies today. I’ve heard people say it has a David Lynch vibe, which I can see. It’s intriguing when a man knows that he’s killed somebody and begs the police to charge him.